Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sick


Who gets a chest infection just days before their birthday party???!!! ARRRGGG!!!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Home Sick


I've been living in Cali for quite some time now. But since I still have so many of my friends and family still in NY, I try to go back as often as possible. I usually wind up out there for special events, family gatherings and whatnot. Every year for the last 3 or 4 years I have spent my birthday in my native! Sadly this year I couldn't afford to go. Thanks George Dubbya!!! Anyway, when I'm there, my NYC friends try to make it as special as possible for me on my day, i.e. champagne bottles, birthday cake, good trees and lots of love. I also have 2 other VIRGO friends whose birthdays are very close in date with mine so we show each other mad love. Well, I spoke with both of those friends the other day, separately, and they each told me they were throwing a party, together! OMG! The 1st time I'm not there in 3-4 years, they decide to have a party! It was yesterday and I'm so sad that I wasn't able be there. I called my girl lastnight to give her birthday kisses and wishes and I heard all of my friends in the backround. ARGGG! I wanted to get a hold of Doc Brown and implore him to allow me to borrow the Delorean so that I could smash back in time and get to 145st and Amsterdam ASAP!!! Unfortunately, I have no communication with Doc Brown and I haven't seen Marty McFly in mad years. I sat. In my crib. In Cali. While her phone got passed around to all in attendance and she said, "Say Hi to Dawn S****." I sulked after I told everyone I love them and I'd be out there sometime real soon and hung up. (I should've told them to pass around a champagne flute and start up a collection for my homecoming.) I'm actually having my own birthday party at Geisha House this Sunday and I'm really excited about it. But something in my heart misses the hood. The block. I think I'd take that over any Hollywood party, anyday. I just hate to miss out on things. Especially things that I feel I SHOULD be an essential part of. I miss my home. No matter where I go, NEW YORK is always home. It feels like I belong. My feet get happy when they hit the pavement outside of JFK. I breathe in all that polluted, post-911 air and I come alive! Cali's great! Don't get me wrong. I got it crazy good out here. But my heart yearns. It needs that occasional skip of a beat from all them fine Boriqua boys on the corners in the summertime. My tongue craves Mr. Softie's vanilla with sprinkles or a coco-cherry. My nose needs that pissy staircase wake-up stench when the elevator is broken. My eyes need to see all the people I grew up with, their parents that my parents grew up with, and their parents' parents that my grandparents once knew. I miss being in my Grandfather's brownstone, seeing the Hudson as I walk down to Riverside to visit my Aunt, riding the bus to Jersey to see my Titi. I miss wildin' out with my cousins. I miss my Father. I miss playing with my Grandmothers hair. I wanna go home. If only for a little while. I know NY misses me! We make each other smile. Anyone else missing their native? I think I need a Nutkracker. Help!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Back Again for the 1st Time


Sup kidz? Soooo, I've decided to blog because I have way too much sh!t going on in my head that absolutely needs an OUT! (besides music, that is.) "Welcome to the world of blogging, Mis.Led!", you say? "Why, thank you very much!", I reply. The previous posts are from an article that I used to write when I had more time on my hands and less distractions. So, even though they're not so new, they are most certainly still relevant. Voila! My gift to you, Archived "Sex and the Suburbs" articles by Mis.Led! YAY!
So with this blog I intend to vent, inform, and just pretty much put you on to what I already know or find out along the way. Hope you care, but not really. How could you not, though? The internet has enabled us all to become "other people's business" addicts. Hello, my name is Mis.Led! and if you're interesting enough, I'll be all up in your biz and I welcome you to be all up in mine. Eff it! It'll all come out eventually. Might as well come from yours truly! Enjoy being nosy and getting put on to mad game. This is gonna be fun! Smooches!

Sex and the Suburbs IV "Batman Returns" (2/27/07)


I usually don’t pick up the phone for numbers that I don’t recognize but, in this case, the number looked kind of familiar; like someone who sometimes called my house looking for a friend of mine. I picked up. “Can I speak to D***?” the man on the other end said. (Ok, it wasn’t for my friend.) “Who is this?” I asked. “Batman.” he replied. My heart dropped to my stomach and almost immediately I began to laugh out loud! “Wow!” I said…”Batman, Batman?” I had to verify. “Yep.” He said as he chuckled. We shared a laugh. “What’s up?” I asked, giving him a chance to tell me the reason he decided to call me now. He told me that he’d been trying to contact me because he’d heard, through mutual friends, of all the progress I’d made in my music career and he wanted to check out a show. Whoa. Okay, I thought to myself, slowly trying to figure out what his motives were as I simultaneously played back all the bullsh*t that happened 4 years prior. Funny though, I didn’t feel like I thought I would feel after all this time. I wasn’t bitter anymore. I wasn’t ready to go off on him; none of that. We were both pretty surprised but, it was what it was. From there we continue.

We had a normal conversation; nothing too personal. I did ask how his “family” was doing. He said his daughter was doing well and that her mom, Vickee, lived pretty close to him. I didn’t ask if they were still a couple but I was dying to know because I was curious as to why they weren’t living together. It was a great conversation; much better than I ever thought it would be. He was like my best friend all over again. What I mean is that it felt good, even if it was just for a little while.

Anyhow, we, let me rephrase that; he would call and we would chat or he would text me and we would chat- a lot. He’d say things like “I’m sorry, I’m just excited to have you back in my life.” He even claimed that he felt like he’d lost one of his best friends when we parted ways. (Wow, look who seemed like a BIG man.) A couple of times I was tied up when he called so I’d ask, “Is it ok to call you back-at this number-even if it’s late?” I was feeling him out. One time he replied, I’m single, D***, I do what I want.” Single, huh? Yea ok.

So, he actually did come to the show, like he said he would! It was nice to see him. He looked good; mature, even. We talked at the function and when it was time to go I gave him a hug and thanked him for coming. That was it. We kept in touch, often, and one night he said he was coming out to my part of town and hinted/asked if he could stop by. Damnit! This was a trap, I thought to myself. It was the first time in years that we would be alone together. I was apprehensive, I must admit, but I gave him the ok. When he got to my house it was cool. We talked and laughed and I finally got the nerve to tell him how I felt back then. (I mean I put it all out there!) I asked him straight up why he handled things the way he did. He told me that he felt strongly for me back then but he didn’t think I felt the same way. (I was frontin’ a whole lot) He said he became confused as he got closer to both Vickee and me, and that when I gave him “the letter” he didn’t know what to do because she was already pregnant. He admitted that he wished he’d handled things differently and said that he missed our friendship all those years. Awww. I sat and paid attention to him as he spoke, which I knew took a lot out of him, and I was attracted to him all over again. OMG! I had to have him-so I did. B-A-D.

Well, as wrong as it was, it happened, and I was willing to look past it and move on. I mean, I didn’t want anything from him and I thought he felt the same. I was wrong.

We had many late night talks after that. We’d be up till 4 or 5 in the morning a few days a week on the phone reminiscing, joking, laughing and talking about “us”. After we put everything out there on the table (I do mean EVERYTHING), he suggested that we give it another try; for real this time. We both agreed that we never really had a fair chance the first time around and that we should at least see where we could take it. I was in complete shock. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. Mr. Emotionless had confessed his feelings and admitted his mistakes and now we were to move on, together; “exclusively”, as HE suggested. Let me reiterate that it was his suggestion. Pretty cool, huh? Yea.

We went out a few times. We hung out on our days off. He came to my house and I went to his. I asked him how he thought Vickee would feel about “us”. I mean, she had spent a lot of time wondering if we had something going on back in the past and I’m sure she felt like she’d finally gotten rid of me and, POOF, all of a sudden I was back and “we” were a “couple”? I knew that would be a pill too jagged for her to swallow. He told me that he didn’t want to tell her about “us” until he felt secure with our “relationship”. He wanted to wait at least a year. I understood, although I didn’t think we’d need a year to validate our “relationship”, I kept that thought to myself. With that in mind, we also agreed that I wouldn’t meet his daughter for the same reasons. It all sounded logical so I went along with it.

We had some really good times with each other and I really felt like we had come a long way and actually had the potential to make it as a couple. I let him take the lead. He called me to hang out. He invited me over. He invited himself over or just gave hints that he wanted to come over. (He always had a hard time saying what he felt when it had to do with us.) Eventually I reciprocated but not for quite some time. I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t believe for one second that it could be so easy, so I let him set the tone.

2 months into our “relationship” I went out of town. We talked almost every night and I missed him, so I told him. He didn’t say it back. Although I knew in my heart and mind that he missed me, I let it go because I figured it was a little too early in for him, Mr. Emotionless, to verbally express it to me. To his credit, he did text every now and then that he “wished I was there with him.”

4 months into things I decided to tell him again. He asked me how I was doing one day and I told him, I was ok but I missed him. I waited. He still didn’t say it back to me. I thought to myself, if you don’t miss me by now then F*** you! I was upset but I didn’t tell him until the next day or so. The whole “I miss you” thing triggered a conversation that lead him to tell me that he felt we were like boyfriend/girlfriend and moving too fast in the “relationship”. I listened and although I wasn’t at all surprised that he’d pulled this sh** on me, I was still hurt; as hurt as I could be, due to the fact that I already expected he’d do something ill like that, eventually.

Our “talk” was eventually interrupted because he had to go to work, so he said we could continue it later, but when later came it was as if nothing had ever happened. There was no issue. He acted as if everything was normal so I went along with it and decided to just fall back. The funny thing was that once I backed off he got upset. He’d make sarcastic comments like, “Gosh, I said one little thing and everything is different” and “I didn’t mean for anything to change.” But wasn’t that the point? Didn’t he tell me how he felt so that I would back off? Had I not given him space, he would’ve felt like he told me how he felt in vein and that I didn’t get the hint, right? I gave him what he indirectly asked for and he was upset about it. I thought it was quite comical, at the same time, I was so heated, that I wrote a song about the situation and planned to give it to him but I never built up the nerve to do so.

I stayed with him for 2 months after the “talk” to see if he’d get his act together, but he seemed to distance himself from me; maybe because I pulled away from him so abruptly, maybe not. But I refused to be another Vickee. I refused to be head over heals for a man that could be with me for years and still not really know or admit how he felt about me. I knew I had wasted enough of my time and that he’d hurt me in the end, again, if I let him.

Around the Holidays we’d drifted so far apart that I hadn’t even heard from him for 2weeks and I damn sure didn’t call him. I decided it was time to pull the rug from under his a**. But rather than call him and tell him how I felt (for fear of being called too sensitive), I wrote him an e-mail. I know it probably seems like a cop out but he had ridiculed me so many times before about my “sensitivity” that I couldn’t give him the opportunity to turn this moment into a “sensitivity” issue. I told him that somehow I knew he would do this then I reminded him that he told me he would always be there for me. I told him that it was obvious to me that he didn’t want this relationship and that there was no reason to continue. I attached the song I’d written to the email and like that, it was over! I did kind of hope for a response, knowing that it was highly unlikely, or at least something to show respect for what we’d shared and the fact that I’d given him a second chance even though I had a feeling he would drop that piano on my head again. Nothing. No response, ever. Am I wrong or is that a really cowardly way to handle things, especially as an adult? To this day I’ve heard nothing from wack a** “Batman” and my question is this: how long does it really take for a man to step up to the plate and be a man? How long is a woman supposed to wait? “Batman” and I agreed on all the same things. He brought up most of the things we agreed on. I didn’t imagine the depth of our relationship. He made me feel like it was ok to be a certain way with him and when I was that way he reneged. I can’t even stress enough that I knew he would [renege]. I didn’t know in what manner, but I knew he would.

I’d given “Batman” a second chance because I felt that after all this time he’d grown up, he’d matured and somehow he’d know how to treat me because his daughter had changed him. I felt that way because he made me feel that way and after I walked away, this time, I felt really good because I’d done so with my head held high knowing that I’d been open and honest from the jump and that he was the one who had been dishonorable. But what the heck went wrong? I guess I’ll never know. But I do know this: I’d better not get a call in 4 years to explain!

Sex and the Suburbs III "Batman" (1/11/07)


Many years ago, I dated this man; this boy transitioning in to manhood; well, let’s just say, this guy. I call this guy “Batman” because we rarely got out of the bat cave to do anything fun. Don’t get me wrong, we had fun just hanging out, watching movies and enjoying each others company. I just thought that we would be more active outside of the bat cave than we actually were. Anyway, I “dated” Batman for a little over a year. He had a girl that he was dating regularly and we started out as friends. Haha…until…one night we just had so many sparks flying that I just put it out there in the open. “I’m attracted to you, but I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” I said. He agreed. We spent more time together, just chillin’ and getting to know each other, and a few months later, we began a physical relationship. Even though we both agreed to keep feelings and emotions out of it, I knew it was a bad move.
It started out cool. He was honest with me about the girl, or so I thought. “We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of years.” he told me. Huh? A couple of years? And you haven’t committed to her? (i.e. “The Blame Game”) No, he hadn’t. Poor girl. Not only had he not committed to her, but he also hadn’t told her he was boinking every girl that walked into that “den of sin” that he damn near lived in with his friends. No surprise. Why not though? Oh yea, because he didn’t want her to do the same thing. Got it.
Well, as time went on, their relationship grew (though I had no idea know how much), our relationship grew, and the mess grew. For the first few months, he was eager to be with me, hang out, talk, laugh and just have fun. When the lights went off there was a collage of fireworks, passion, lust, emotions and thrilling things that I had never even thought of doing before. (Whooo…excuse me.) As time went on though, he began making excuses for why he couldn’t hang with me or why he couldn’t stay very long after we’d wake up together. I began to see my status slip farther and farther down the “hang out” chain. I also started to notice that he was spending more and more time with “her”. This went on for months and I slipped into an emotional haze; depressed, sad and constantly wondering where this was going and if I was going to get my heart broken. The problem, in my eyes, was that I had broken our agreement. I started catching feelings. Damn. It really confused me. Here, he had a woman that he was not interested in committing to, even thought they had a few years under their belt. And then there was me. The fun, cool, buddy like chick that he had never been exposed to. Having that power, I felt I could shift his attention towards me eventually, and she would just vanish. After all, if he really wanted to be with her, he would not be with me, right? Wrong!
I tried, very nonchalantly, on several occasions to break things off with him, as I had slipped further into my haze, but he didn’t take me seriously. I had put up such a front that he believed that I was fine with how things were. I wasn’t. But I was afraid to tell him just how far down I had sunk. Deeper and deeper into him, and hell. He was a dog. A dirty dog. I knew this. But I still wanted him. Why? If I got him what would I do with him? He would without a doubt, be the same snake to me as he had been to her. So what the hell was I doing?
Time went on and we went back and forth. Off and on. I knew they had been getting closer and hanging out more and more, but he never told me this himself. I just so happened to have a little birdie on my side that made me privy to a lot of exclusive information. Yet, I still thought, “He’ll never take her seriously. They’ll never be together.” Dumb.
After so many months of trying to get up the nerve to tell him exactly how I felt, I decided to let it all out. It had taken over my brain. It was all I thought about. All I wanted to do was see him, be around him, and make him stay with me. But it wasn’t like that. I wrote him the longest letter of all time. Gosh it had to be about 10 pages long. It was the only way was I could get him to pay attention, without jokes and sarcastic comments to deter me. He never responded. Wow. Not only did my lover diss me, but my so called “friend” had forsaken me and our “friendship” without a second thought. Not too long after “the letter”, my little birdie let me in on some exclusive news. Batman and Vickee Vale were expecting. A child?! I was devastated! According to my humming bird buddy, they were actually happy about it and couldn’t wait for their new arrival. WTF! After I recovered from the piano that dropped down onto my head, I gathered up the courage to see him one last time. I wanted to give him a chance to come clean. I thought for sure that he would. He didn’t. Damn, after all the good times, laughs, inside jokes, late night talks, etc. I thought I meant more than that to him. I thought we connected. I was wrong.
Our friendship had gone from all things to no things. What happened to our honesty policy? Why didn’t he just tell me? True, I was in way over my head with this one, and, as many times as I had tried to leave him alone, I never once told him how deeply I had fallen and how much he had affected me. I became a different person. I didn’t even recognize myself any more. After that night, I completely walked away from him and our “situation”, and he abandoned me, and our friendship, and never looked back. (Boo freekin’ hoo.) He was gone. Out of my life for good and I was ambivalent. My guard was back up and no one was going to get in, ever! No friends. No lovers. I lost. She won. Good riddance. I mean, what was I going to do with a guy like that anyway? My brain settled on the notion that she would be the one to suffer with him and for him, not me. Fine.
Years passed and I thought about him less and less. Only every now and again wondering how he was doing, what his child was like, if he was happy with the decision that he made, and, of course, why he didn’t just man up and tell me the truth.
I had this flawless image of them in my mind. This cute little couple with this cute little baby and the perfect parents raising their perfect child together, in love and, possibly, in marital bliss. Whatever.
4 years later I had lived, loved and lost, and it was time for me to start over, again. I sat in my apartment with my new attitude on life and love, and Batman far, far away from my thoughts. Until the phone rang.

Sex and the Suburbs II “Yes, No or Maybe (check a box)” (10/27/06)


I met a guy not too long ago. He wasn’t exactly the “eye-catching” type but he had this vibe, this energy about him that attracted me to him only a few minutes after being in his presence. Not the kind of attraction where I wanted to rip his clothes off or anything, but the kind that drew me deeper into him. We almost immediately began the “flirting game”. Turns out, he was friends with a few people that I know as well, putting us in the same places at the same time and allowing us to continue our little flirting game. You know, sitting next to each other, laughing about nothing, kisses on the cheek, subtle gestures that made it ok to touch a shoulder or leg, without feeling uncomfortable. We exchanged AIM information and we chatted when we could. At first, he was really “gung ho” about talking to me. Inviting me over to where he spends most of his time, asking me to be there for him on certain days, etc. I’d probably seen him about 5 times in a 3 week period. We had not had an official date nor had we spent any real time getting too personal with one another. The thing is, when I would go to be with him, there were also 50 other people around so there was no room to personalize the environment. This didn’t seem to bother him. It did, however, irritate the h-e-l-l out of me. Why would he ask me to be there for him if we were not going to be able to have some alone time to feel each other out. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you are interested in someone? This happened at least twice. Then the IM’s started to dwindle. You know, you see him online, he sees you online, but neither of you takes the initiative to connect. Not a good sign. Maybe I should’ve been an adult and just sent him a message. But ii felt like he should IM me because I was not feeling the way things had been going down. He didn’t though. Leaving me to wonder. Does he like me or not?

When you were young it wasn’t hard to know whether a boy liked you. Some put it right out there for you with the all too familiar “do you like me” note. You know, yes, no or maybe. You pick the box and then, boom, you both have your answer. (Ahh, the good ole days). Others took the more antagonistic approach. Ponytail pulling, pinching and punching. As childish as it was, those were all signs that, yes indeed, that boy really did like you, he just didn’t know how to express it.

Now that I am older, I’ve realized that it’s not much different with grown up men either. They still don’t know how to express their dreaded emotions/feelings and they still antagonize you, just in a different manner. All in all it is a pretty confusing ride to be on, but once you’re on, you have to wait for it to stop before you can get off. Don’t you wish you could just raise your hand like at the amusement park, so they could stop the ride because you weren’t feeling good about it anymore? Me, too. Unfortunately, it’s not so simple.

When you first meet a man who is interested in you and he is excited and enthusiastic about getting to know you, you, like I, may be just as excited and enthusiastic as he is. But what happens when you continue on that way, but the fire seems to be dying on his end? That’s how I felt about this guy. What happened? Was I dreaming? Did I mistake his friendliness for flirtyness? I don’t think so. Not with messages like, “I miss you.” And “You have to come through tonight, it’s my birthday and I want to be with you.” Yet when I would get there it wouldn’t be about me. It was about everybody over there. I even suggested that we get away for a little bit. That would be followed up by excuses like, “Oh, I have to be in the studio” or “I have to finish this song tonight, shoot a video, milk a cow”. It all sounded the same to me. LAME. Why do guys do this? Get you all wound up about hanging out and then act like its nothing to be around you. Did he want me to chase him? That wasn’t going to happen. Did something change his mind? And if so, why wouldn’t he just tell me? This type of conundrum kept my head spinning. What do I do? Sit and wait or keep it moving? The latter is easier said then done.

In a world where most men and women are compelled to be as “hard” as they possibly can, how do you let down your guard to even ask someone new how they feel about you? That would mean that they would know you’ve been affected by their bullsh*t. That would mean that they would know that they got to you.

I have never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve but rather suppress my feelings and walk away from the situation with a BIG question mark on my forehead. That’s so unhealthy. I am more mature than that now. Right? Shouldn’t all of us in our 20’s and above be? The answer to that is yes. But, the real question is this, when will we be?

We really didn't know how good we had it back in the day. Do you want to bring the check boxes back? No? Then lets communicate people!

Sex and the Suburbs I “The Blame Game” (10/26/06)


So, I was sitting here thinking. What’s wrong with the guys of the world, the country, the cities, the suburbs and the ghettos, today? What is their major malfunction? What is it that they want from, look for, hope for, and dream about in a woman? Well, it seems to me what they don’t want is commitment. They do, however, want what most men call these days, a wifey. Some beautiful, young lady willing to “ride” with them, provide for them, have their backs through the hard times, have their kids, cook, clean and have sex with them and only them. In the meanwhile, their out doing some, if not all, of the following:

“hustling” the streets, or “hugging” the block, in the so-called “studio” all damn night, club hopping, hoe hopping, having multiple “baby’s mamas”, drinking, and smoking, then coming home to you (or they mama’s house) at some ungodly hour! They want you to put up with all this crap, yet, they refuse to seal the deal and commit to you! To add insult to injury, they make it your choice to, eh em, “ride along or ride alone”. How did we get to this point? How do they figure that this is ok? Have we allowed this once intolerable behavior to become the “norm”? Then, the dreaded question hit me. Is it “our” fault?

Think about it for a moment. Men used to be chivalrous, thoughtful, appeasing, even. Yes, this was long ago, but never the less, it was present at the time. Those of us blessed enough to have an example of such a man, can usually identify him as a grandfather or grand uncle of sorts. I certainly had one. My grandfather was from the age of the “gentleman”. Clean cut, sharp dressed, take you out to get to know you, kiss your hand or cheek at the end of a date and actually call you not too long afterwards. I’m not saying he was “perfect”. God knows there is no such thing. But, he set the example for my mother, my aunts and me. “Don’t bring no dummies into this family.” Those words echo in my mind over and over, like a loop. (Hmm, song idea!) He made us feel valuable. Morals were great to have. A lady conducted herself properly to get a gentleman or she was a slut bag and got the attention of all of the men mentioned above. Do we set the example for the guys now? Like their mothers? Are we their moms now? Am I mistaken, or, weren’t their moms supposed to instill those same values in their sons so that they, themselves, would know how to treat a real lady? Wasn’t their relationship with their mother the foundation of how they were to treat a woman in the future?

There once was a time when a man would dis a “slut” or “hoe”. Yes, they would still “hit”, but that would be the beginning and end of things. Now a days, the male species has embraced such a female. Now there are #1 hits on the radio all applauding the image, drive and idea of being a stripper, gold digger, and a straight up hoe making a lucrative living doing sexual favors for men who range from professionals all the way down to your everyday dirt bag. Now the “pop”ulation is condoning this example of a half-ass woman, as the “thing” to be.

Of course, we must take into consideration that we are living in the generation of the fatherless sons. Most of these young men grew up without a real dad or father figure. Leaving their mother to fill that void as best as she can. So then I ask. How are they to know how a grown man is supposed treat a grown woman?

The bond between a mother and her son is like a man and a woman in a relationship, without the sex. A woman will be hard on her son, strict, and put him in check with a quickness. She will also let him get away with murder. Sound familiar? I mean, mothers these days are allowing their grown up sons to live at home with no job and no goals until they basically find a woman who will nurture them in the same exact manner. Negating most of the duties and responsibilities that a man would normally have, and, take pride in having. In plain English, they don’t pull their weight. (These suckas want to wear the crown but don’t want the responsibility of a King.) Are we raising babies? Does a son getting over on his mother then realize that he can get over on other females too or is it just in a mans nature to be a deceitful A-hole? Maybe the world will never know.

My point is this. If we, as women, have stooped low enough to become what we were raised to frown upon, if we fought to be equal for so long that we now have taken on the “man’s role”, if we have allowed ourselves to be seen in a dim light, if we don’t straighten up and put our foot down, what will our sons and daughters be like?

Is it the fault of the men, the women, the fathers, or the mothers? The answer is yes, it is.